


If These Walls Could Talk

by Prince_Of_The_Night



Series: Seams Undone [1]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-typical language, Depression, Drinking, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Hospitalization, Implied/Referenced Mental Illness, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Prompt Fic, References to Depression, References to Drugs, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-16 23:52:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13064787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prince_Of_The_Night/pseuds/Prince_Of_The_Night
Summary: If these walls could talk, they would cry for the people who couldn't.___________________________________________________On the prompt: “Use the lyrics of your favorite song as the basis for a short story”. Written to Halsey’s “Walls Could Talk”





	If These Walls Could Talk

**Author's Note:**

> AU where the Beast, Mike, Alice and Quentin getting together, etc. never happened, and Eliot falls in love with a first year too hard. A small story written as procrastination, hope you all enjoy it.
> 
> Written to Halsey's "Walls could talk", and it is suggested that you listen to the song while reading.

* * *

 

 _“_ _Been about three days and I'm comin' back_  
_I'm about four minutes from a heart attack_  
_And I think you make me a maniac  
_ _But you don't know”_

* * *

He had the odd habit of disappearing over the weekends. He’d be there all of Friday, but by the time the (practically) weekly parties at the cottage had really started, Quentin was gone. And usually, so was a bottle of whiskey. Yet by the time morning classes started on Monday, he was always there.

At first, no one notices. Parties were never his thing, usually; and most of the kids from the cottage spent weekends locked in rooms studying for exams they had been told about weeks ago, but had been too hungover to care about, or in a drug or alcohol induced stupor. So, easily enough, no one noticed. At first.

Alice, ever so perceptive, was the first to notice. Her earliest suspicions started when Quentin showed up Monday morning, as normal, look only slightly - very, very slightly; Alice was probably the only one to notice - worse for wear. His eyes were dull, not quite as shining as they typically were, and the bags and dark circles under his were more pronounced. It was confirmed the following Saturday when he wasn’t in his room, not Sunday either.

Eliot noticed second. He knew Quentin best, knew the movements and sighs and tired eyes that meant certain not so great things. Most of all, he knew the (not-so) subtle signs of self-medication. Everyone has their poison: alcohol, drugs, sex - you name it and Eliot’s done it.

So he cornered Quentin on a Friday afternoon, hooked their arms together, and declared that they (he) were skipping the parties and going out for drinks, _in town_. And Quentin, in all his quite and thundering awkwardness, had no protest. As if he believe he had reached the zenith of his life, and would spend the rest of it living out a boring way. Not if Eliot had anything to say. If anything, Quentin’s viridity was refreshing.

So they drifted into town, walking out of an alley like it was a completely normal thing to do, and ended up in a small enough bar for a while. But three drinks later they had left, and soon enough the both of them sat on a rooftop - neither of them were sure it was legal - drinking from their own wine bottles and laughing at the stars, high on the sensation of being near each other and the thought that until the morning brontide came, they didn’t have to be perfect students or even people at all. That they could just be.

And this, Quentin thought, was why he was in love with the idea of friendship, no matter how foreign the waters felt some nights.

“It’s so weird,” Quentin says, too happy and drunk on fancy wine and the ludic air between them to actually care all that much about what he was saying. “That just barely a year ago, I…” And he had stopped, caught up in pouring more mouthfuls of alcohol down his throat.

“You what?” Eliot asked, tipsy enough to be giggling. But the words his second best friend said and the little puff of misplaced laughter freezes his heart and suddenly he’s a little more sober than he’d like to be.

“That I was… I don’t know. In a hospital, ready to give up. God, I don’t even know. It feels like a dream, because sometimes it’s like when I handed over that pill bottle I finally woke up from a really long kinda-nightmare, but then shit happens and people die and it’s like ‘Wow, I did this’ and fuck, man. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore, El.” And Quentin shakes his head, like it’s a simple math problem a ten year old made and Eliot thinks, _I don’t know either_. So he drowns out the pesky thoughts and tries to forget the fact that he let himself get attached again and downs a quarter of what’s left in one gulp.

And then Eliot finds himself thinking about how he left Margo and how she’d damn well notice and there’d be hell to pay come morning, and he’s not drunk enough. Best friends for two years and he skips out on her for the nerdy first year? Yeah, real dick move, Eliot, he thinks to himself.

Somehow, they’re angry at the world, Eliot and Quentin. So they scream into the night and stumble into a park - and hey, it’s New York and of course someone’s busking, so they dance. They’re drunken idiots, sure. But for a moment, they forget to bury away their thoughts and the fear that the night will end too young, even as the world dances into matutine peace.

* * *

_“Two years and we in between_  
_But we both been here since we seventeen_  
_Here we go, fist fight in a limousine  
But they don't know”_

* * *

When Eliot wakes up in the morning, he’s in Quentin’s bed and his first coherent thought is “Fuck, I fucked up”, but that’s wrong (or not, he isn’t sure) because Quentin isn’t in the bed. And Margo, she’s pissed at him. Has a right to be, Eliot thinks. But he’s scared and ready to beg and Margo can never stay mad at him for long. So she tells him. Tells him that Quentin brought Eliot back and flopped him down in Quentin’s room and left again, off to live whatever fantasy he does on the weekends. So Eliot lights a cigarette. Then a second. By the time an hour passes, he’s almost 9 in and he briefly imagines the lighter against his palm, but forgets it just as quickly.

But then he remembers last night and the words “ _hospital_ ” and “ _pill bottle_ ” and “ _ready to give up_ ” rattle in his head nonstop, and Eliot wonders if the “ _again_ ” he had heard implied was really there. Then he wonders if Quentin has scars across his arms and stomach like he does. Probably. The thought terrifies Eliot.

And on the other side of the city, Quentin sits in an office waiting room, and tries to ignore the monachopsis tugging at the back of his head. He’s oddly aware of his breathing, relieved when the doctor motions to him and he can get out of the oddly small feeling room.

He sits in the chair and looks at Dr. London before him. She just watches him back, waiting for him to make the first move. So he does. “I did something really stupid last night.” He waits, but so does she - not saying anything, just nodding for him to continue. So he does. “I let a friend drag me out and get me drunk.” Dr. London frowns. “I don’t know why I did. But the look he gave me, I couldn’t say no. He practically dragged me anyways. So we got drunk and sung to the stars, and he probably had one too many cigarettes, but he never seems to care.” And then, Dr. London speaks, but Quentin only half-listens, preparing to lie to his best friend’s face again, like he has to every Sunday.

He does it flawlessly now.

* * *

_“And we both hope there's something_  
_But we bo-both keep fronting_  
_And it's a closed discussion  
And I'm thinking ‘Damn, if these walls could talk’”_

* * *

 

He meets Julia in a small cafe and the small talk starts rolling. _How’s school going_ and _I hear you moved in with James_. Like she’s still the same Julia and he’s still the same Quentin, but they’re not and both of them know it. It doesn’t stop them from pretending. It’s what they were best at.

Julia asks him about his friends at this new, fancy college that she’s never heard of (a joking “You do have friends right, Q?” followed by laughter) and he sugarcoats his words (his world) and talks about the two party-loving top dogs of the school that decided to ‘take him under their wing’ and then Julia asks him if he likes anyone. He laughs and says no, he doesn’t, but even he’s not sure if that’s the truth or not.

When Julia heads to the bathroom, Quentin pulls out the two blue-green pills, each the size of the bones between the knuckles of his pinky finger, and downs them quickly, chased by quickly cooling coffee. He thinks bitterly to himself, _magic comes from pain_ , because that’s what Eliot said, but oh well. He was never a good magician to begin with.

* * *

_“Well, they'd be like_  
_(Oh-oh-oh)_  
_"Shit is crazy right?"_  
_(Oh-oh-oh)  
I ain't your baby no more”_

* * *

 

It’s Sunday night, Monday morning when Quentin creeps in. It’s 3 am, and - despite being known for reckless parties and carelessness - the Physical Kids always managed to somehow be asleep by then. That, or passed out drunk. Quentin’s own insomnia had often been the very thing that made him the only one awake late, so he was only barely managed to not jump out of his sin when he crept through the door.

Eliot, drunk or high or perhaps even sober for once in his life, sat in one of the chairs, staring at the ceiling. “Where do you go?” he asked, barely flickering his eyes to take in the first-year in front of him. “Every time. You just-” he waved a hand absently “-disappear. Where do you go, Q? Why?”

But Quentin didn’t have an answer. For once, no lie sat ready on his tongue, dancing at his lips. He could never lie to Eliot. So he doesn’t. “The city,” he says. Because it’s the easiest answer, the safest. Eliot’s not stupid though.

“Why? What are you running from Q?” And now, he’s finally looked at Quentin, staring him in the eye. Neither can (wants to) look away.

“Myself.” It’s so quiet, even Quentin’s unsure if he really said it. But he did. And in the dead quiet of the (way) too early morning, Eliot hears. And it breaks his heart. So they sit in the dark and watch the sun wander over the horizon that’s hidden by trees and the room fills with all the smoke from the cigarettes in the ashtray. But when the sun is up and people start wandering down the stairs, it’s like the night, the whole weekend, never happened. Quentin leaves to pack the stupid book bag he always carries, then to class, and Eliot downs another shot of vodka. At some point, Margo had made her way down the steps, and a hand settled in his hair. “Bambi,” he says, “I think I fucked up a perfectly good friendship.”

* * *

_“Been about two weeks since you went away_  
_I'm about halfway through a Cabernet_  
_And I go, I'm wastin' a Saturday  
_ _Sittin' at home”_

* * *

But somehow, he didn’t. So Monday night, and Tuesday night, and all the nights until Thursday, they talk. Thursday night, they talked more, drank more, laughed more. Laughing too much, too loud, Eliot asks, “Why?” Quentin knows, understands. That’s how they work.

“I was 16,” he laughs, too drunk to think clearly. “The first time. I was hospitalized, I mean.  Just--I couldn't get out of bed, like, at all. I didn't know that. My brain breaks sometimes. I feel like I don't feel that it really fixes. It just works better now in its own screwed up way.” His head is in Eliot’s lap, and he doesn’t remember getting there, but it’s fine.

They’re both drunk, and Eliot kisses Quentin. Maybe they’ll regret it in the morning, but for know, it’s fine. Because maybe Quentin can have this one thing that he doesn’t hate. Maybe.

But for now, he can do this.

* * *

  _“Told my new roommate not to let you in_  
_But you're so damn good with a bobby pin_  
_Now you gon' play me like a violin  
Hittin' these notes_

 _And we both hope there's something_  
_But we bo-both keep fronting_  
_And it's a closed discussion  
And I'm thinking "Damn, if these walls could talk"_

 _Well, they'd be like_  
_(Oh-oh-oh)_  
_"Shit is crazy right?"_  
_(Oh-oh-oh)  
I ain't your baby no more”_

* * *

 

**ineffable**

**(adj.)**

completely indescribable, too sacred to speak of


End file.
